Author's Note: Not a lot to say right now, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 27: Prethoryn Part 1
Slag III, ostentatiously a Lithoid world. The Reality of the matter was that mining Blackholes through Matter Decompressor has an extremely toxic byproduct that the Lithoids then has to dispose of. Some people has suggested that the 'obvious' solution would be to simply toss the material back into the Black hole where it won't bother anyone again, the Lithoids bonk such stupid people on the head and explain that they would just end up pulling it back out again. So instead they have Slag worlds, entire worlds considered uninhabitable by the standards of the Stellar Union for being too far away from the sun. The extra mass makes the planet heavier and slowly lowers it into the Goldilocks zone for habitability but honestly? Who would want to live on a planet whose mass was over 70% Eezo? There are a total of four planets like this, three that have already exceeded whats widely considered to be a 'safe' mass and a fourth that's on it's way to sharing a similar fate, a planet sized chunk of Eezo sinking into a sun was not something that bode well, for anyone.
Several huge thick masses slammed into the planet, if there was life living on the planet each mass would have slammed into the planet with enough force to render them extinct, like a whole meteor storm of the rock that wiped out the Dinosaurs. Except these weren't rocks. Inside of the ensuing craters acid and embryonic fluid was bubbling away dissolving the surrounding Eezo and eating it. 'Eezo is a toxic substance, inducing cancer and causing hallucinations and mental instability' These and more were the opinions of the various minds the Prethoryn have read, searching for anything that can give them a advantage, until recently.
'Eezo has the chance to grant biotic abilities. Biotics refer to the power to manipulate mass making objects lighter or heavier, those who possess biotic abilities have the potential to become great warriors. Eezo is a solves all substance that can be used to augment projectile weapons, generate barriers for self defence and augment ships for space travel.' Because of this the Prethoryn reorganised their priorities, through the information they have sifted through of their myriad enemies they have found the nearest and the largest deposits of Eezo. The Prethoryn struck the surface of the planet with sufficient force to pulp themselves into goo their own ridiculously potent healing factor/reproductive cycle quickly creating the beginning of new Prethoryn that were about to be born.
"I was expecting something... more?" Garrus was staring at the empty black void, the yawning black void wasn't staring back, there was nothing to stare back at them. Contrary to what everyone had been expecting the Prethoryn had not arrived in the Eden system. "Did your mother get what system they were aiming at wrong or...?"
"EDI, long distance telemetry. Now!" Shepard felt embarrassed for EDI, so she gave her a chance to redeem herself. And after a few moments...
"Shepard, I've identified a trace of the Prethoryn. You may want to see this." EDI produced a holographic image of a world dyed blue by the sheer amount of Eezo dumped into it, an entire range of familiar pustules each the size of a mountain, like the planet got giant blue acne.
"Oh that's not good." Shepard stated bluntly. "EDI, is that what I think it is?"
"If you think it's several Prethoryn birth pustules sticking out of the surface of Slag III the answer is yes." Shepard could beat her head against the console.
"Mots." Cursing under her breath Shepard got to work. "Set Coordinates for Slag III and alert the rest of the ships on their way over here! They've got the wrong sector of space!"
"Already alerted them."
"How bad is this?" Garrus asked sounding mildly concerned.
"Garrus, what happens when a fetus is exposed to Eezo?" Shepard asked already aware of the answer.
"There's a chance of developing Biotic abilities along with some cancerous tumours as well." Putting a Talon on his mandible Garrus pondered the implications. "But what does that have to do... with..."
"Ah silence. The sound of the shoe dropping." Shepard stated giving a deadpan stare into the inky black void.
"Shepard, is that blue soil over there supposed to be Eezo?" Garrus asked indicating the hologram.
"Yep." Shepard stated as the Normandy quickly flew into the Laneway.
"All of it?" Garrus asked sounding increasingly concerned about this situation that was unfolding.
"The planet was a little under massed, so the Lithoids dumped all the useless material that they pulled out of the black holes onto planets like them." Shepard stated letting out a sigh.
"Slag III... Shepard exactly how many planets have they..."
"You can come to terms with your warped values later Garrus, I need my sniper on the gun." Shepard was starting to get annoyed by the questions.
"Then can they use it?" Garrus asked looking concerned.
"Probably." Shepard started to explain while holding her finger and thumb a few inches apart and letting them spark with electricity.
The Queen could already feel the power that was pulsing through the veins of her newborn. The Union's Eezo cancer was there, riddling the body of the newborn but so what? Even the smallest Prethoryn is so large that such defects end up eating itself in a cycle of gluttony. More importantly the Krogan had taught them how to use it: Positive current makes things heavier, negative current makes them lighter. To achieve this effect the Krogan and the Citadel they speak of resort to mutilating themselves with wires in their pubescence, the Prethoryn on the other hand? They have psionics, even the Union with their primitive psionic techniques are able to do something on such a basic level. Eezo sadly cannot be used in substitute of organic material, so even after stuffing themselves to the brim with Eezo the number of creatures born matched that of the number that had suicided themselves on Slag III's surface. Finally the wombs ruptured, embryonic fluid spilling out to reveal a series of Dark navy blue leviathean monster that soon rose into the air pushed along by their newly claimed biotic mastery and pulled along by their innate Psionic power.
And Right on time too, the Union and their accursed ships were flying in via their worm holes, the Krogan were once again probed for information. Lift. Slam. Push. Pull. Ah, that will do. The usual Telepathy came, hammering into the Queen's brain but she ignored it as usual. Instead she commanded the power of the newly born hive fleet. Singularity! Suddenly the space in the middle of the Union fleet became warped, like a newly born mass appeared out of thin air and pulled anything that came close to it into the swirling purple void. Normally Singularity would only do this much, but from the exhaust points on the backs of the ship Exotic plasma was spewing, suddenly the singularly largest singularity that had ever existed exploded. Ships were thrown aside, shields shattering and hulls being cracked, mass casualties appeared across the entire subjugation fleet but for now the Prethoryn had other priorities.
Even if you suddenly gained new power would you continue to fight against the enemy you were losing against? Or would you seek out a weaker opponent first? The void of space was opened, energy was gathered from the void of space and in it's absence exotic particles had started to form, these particles were telekinetically gathered together into a single spot and the void of space was punctured. This was how you form a worm hole, normally wormholes have a single limit for how much of something can pass through which determines how far it can go, Mass. The newly reborn hive fleet flew through the worm holes, their combined mass reduced to the weight of a dinner plate as they flew past the broken fleet of Union ships.
"Well this is a right proper mess." The Normandy had gotten close to the Mass of pustules when the Prethoryn picked that time to hatch, they were further away from the singularity than the fleet was and hence spared from being broken over the newly born Hive Fleet's knee. Did they attack the newly born creatures? Of course they did, but one comparatively small frigate just fired on the broadside of a fleshy battleship. Shepard just let out a sigh. "EDI, the new Hive Fleet is dubbed Hydra. Find it." Shepard stated letting out a sigh.
"Affirmative. Hive Fleet Hydra has gone in the direction of Citadel Territory, directly adjacent to the Terminus Quadrant." Shepard just sighed again.
"Contact the council immediately and warn them about Hydra."
Virmire had been abandoned, now that the Terminus sector had made peace with the Citadel plans were being drawn up to colonise the garden world. Plans that were now about to drown in the Prethoryn's acid, much like Virmire itself, the Prethoryn crashed into the planet with enough force that the dust clouds blotted out the sun and the ground was cracked open. Vast oceans of acidic blood laced with embryonic fluid had formed a thin membrane over the crater, already enough raw organic material to cover a continent had been swept away, dissolved down and mixed with the Embryonic fluid. And that was only one of the heads of the Hydra. Every large sized creature in the Hive fleet flew in a separate direction, spreading out with the intention of seeking worlds suitable to birth new additions to the fleet. The Prethoryn spread out in both directions, one group into the Terminus Sector, the other deeper into council space. The Council was of course was messaged that the Prethoryn were on their way, the nearest fleet of Turian's were sent to intercept them in citadel space.
It's one thing to be told that massive planet eating space born leviathan's are a thing that exists, it's another to witness those same creatures in action, and entirely different to see what kind of damage that they're capable of doing. General Victus didn't know what notion he found more horrifying, the fact that the report he received through the dispatch said that the creatures have biotics, or that they normally don't and still manage to give the Union a hard time.
"Get the Hammer ready!" This was not some mere patrol fleet, the research and development of new technology demands a period of trial and error, and while the Thanix was still far away from seeing a test run, the Hammer was just now entering it's first test run. Inside of the missile pods located on either side of the ship a canister had been loaded, and fired via rail gun. The Projectile soared through the void of space and slammed directly into the broadside of the giant blue behemoth's barrier with enough force that the Unstable mot inside the canister detonated igniting the exotic gas turned gel inside turning it into a white hot exotic plasma instead. The Exotic plasma had the usual reaction with the biotic barrier that surrounded the beast's body and let out a loud explosion. But so what? That was a grenade released on the side of a mountain, the rest of the barrier immediately moved into fill the gap like rushing water. "Fire all of the shots now!" The general shouted, dozens more of the projectile canisters were released and resulted in a series of explosions all over to enemy's barrier. And still the Prethoryn didn't slow down, only get pissed of, it's ridiculous durability supplemented by it's equally nonsensical healing factor and use of biotic fields to hold it's body together. Some would run away here, or try to, instead General Victus had his men run the throttle and prepare the ship to self-destruct as they flew into the belly of the beast. The creature bit down on the ship as it flew in and nary a scratch was given when the rear of the ship went off in the crook of the mouth.
Across the boarder in Union territory the strategy used was different: The last time the Union confronted these new Biotic Prethoryn in a head on confrontation they lost, badly, so instead they chose to wait to strike when the hive fleet was at it's weakest. Thus the hulking aliens were allowed to suicide themselves on the planets below, long since evacuated of Batarian's and slaves alike, the Union ships afterwards flew over and readied their array of Gungnir space to surface lances. Tungstun rods equipped with Mass Effect generators to dramatically increase their weight and deflectors to block any air from coming into contact with them. This two part combo made it possible to drop a series of artificial meteors on top of the mountain sized boils that were in the process of giving birth to new horrors below. The Gungnir slammed into the soft tissue of the Prethoryn with the kind of force normally only seen in nuclear warheads. That would buy enough time for the Colossus to swoop in, crack open the planet and burn the infection out. Suddenly the ship's systems were pushed to their limitations.
"What the hell?"
A biotic field was weighing down on the entire ship, attempting to drag it down into the gooey abyss below. They had no other choice but to strain the ship's systems in order to desperately escape the increased gravitational pull that the planet was putting them on, when they attempted to release their payload a second time the projectiles were stripped of artificial gravity and pushed away from the pustules crashing away somewhere relatively safe. For the time being, the new breed of Prethoryn had a foothold in this new part of the galaxy.
Liara was busy examining one of the murals inside of the Krogan ruins, even despite shaking strong enough to dislodged fossilised dust. Kairos was amazing in her own right, she was able to shrug off nuclear warheads, dual her own off spring to the death and come out on top, and lived for thousands of years. Liara wasn't surprised that the Krogan worship her, Tuchanka had no room for weakness, what did it say about ancient Tuchanka that it was more inhabitable now while it was going through a nuclear winter than in it's prime? The Ancient Krogan had no form of digital software, not after the constant EMP's of the war, they instead resorted to carving murals into the concrete, quite skilfully too she might add, describing their last days and lamenting the foolishness of their people.
Funny, with the Protheans she expected artisans, architects and philosophers, instead she got warlords, conquerors and racial supremacists. With the Krogan she expected warlords, conquerors and racial supremacists and instead she got artisans, architects and philosophers. You never know where life will take you. Now if only the giant worm monster would settle down long enough that she could work in peace.
"You'd think the Thresher Maws would actually have settled down already." Liara stated as let out a sigh.
"Well that can't be helped, the Tebrid's built a bunch of maw hammers to keep the Thresher Maw's away from the settlements." Maw hammers that replaced the ancient structures located directly outside of this temple. "This place was built for them, it's their home, we're only visiting."
"Which is good to know, but not the point. You'd think that there would actually be fewer maws around after all the infighting going on." Liara explained as she finished recording the Mural in question.
"Oh that? Thresher Maws are born from spores shed off of the bodies of larger Thresher Maws." The Shamaness explained dropping all sense of mysticism for a few moments.
"They get released like crazy when one of them dies, so you either need to scorch all the spores or contain the entire thing at once when they're small. We're probably going to be busy for a few weeks at this rate." The Shaman let out a sigh at the revelation. "How the hell has this happened?"
"Might be related, not sure how." Mordin was operating several drone cameras which he was using to scout ahead and investigate the tunnels before they went into them. "Salarian team ahead. Might be STG. Shouldn't discount mercenary team."
"Of course you are the one to suggest that the Salarian Union isn't behind this." One of the Krogan snapped however Mordin indicated the wall next to him, the one that was full of pot-marks.
"Is this recent?"
Liara looked inside of the concrete holes that someone shot into the wall.
"No." Liara stated bluntly. "The discolouration is different from the rest of the concrete." Liara biotically brushed away the surface of the hole, ran the particulates through her omnitool and made a discovery. "Polonium, only a single grain of it." Liara examined the rest of the holes with the same methods. Polonium was the most common slug choice for black market arms, for much the same reason why it's banned on the open market. Polonium is radioactive, even expended polonium, even a single grain of it released into the blood stream is capable of wreaking all sorts of havoc on the body that even if you survive the shot you'll be dead in days.
"All the bullet holes in the whole galaxy doesn't mean anything." Just to prove his point one of the Krogan were about to fire his Graal Thrower into the nearby wall.
"Fire that gun and the next shot goes into your head." The Shamaness stated as she indicated the opposite wall.
"Blood and ash." This one missed, the other one didn't, then he tried to cover up the evidence of what he did with a fire. They might run into more incidents of the like. "Hard to say whose blood this was." Mordin stated. "Will attempt to sneak up on the other party, discern intentions." Mordin stated closing his Omni-tool as he left to go investigate the group in the temple.
One Krogan went to follow him, others spread out in order to flush out more Salarians, leaving Liara alone. After her previous experience on Therum she learned her lesson about not turning her email off while she was at work, she was however now getting messages from an unknown sender instead. Even worse it didn't delete when she told it to. So instead she opened the link.
"If this is some kind of scam call..." The contents of the Email was well... less than stellar. She failed to see how her sex life with Shepard was these people's concern. Then she got an attachment explaining the Correlation between Asari Psi-rating and their 'fathers'. Not only did Liara turn off her Omni-tool after that, but she opened up the slot in her arm and took the whole thing out. Because that was exactly what she needed right now. "Go plow a Creeper if you want Psionics that badly."
And then the temple shook again. What was wrong with that creature? It was happening lately to drive it so blatantly crazy, Tuchanka had recently turned pretty green from all of the fertilisers that the Tebrid's have been... Fertiliser. Like a Certain mushroom that she could think of.
"That ego-maniacal little..."
Liara had been walked through psionics 101, enter the mind palace and cutting off the Thorian's telepathic influence by Shepard, entered the mind palace and you see a door leading outside, inside is your mind but outside is everyone else. Gripping the handle Liara opened the door but a crack, and the dead bolt chain was still in place so that the door couldn't be opened all the way was pulled taught.
"OBEY ME YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
Liara closed the door and let out a sigh. The Thorian had gotten into Kairos's head. Why? Perhaps it fed into the Egomaniacal little monster's own interests and delusions of grandeur to place a creature considered to be the local diety under it's control. After all lessons on how to block out the Thorian's influence would become standardised within a few weeks, the Thorian Fungicide was probably already being mass produced as a security measure in case the monster got ideas, so why wouldn't it try to seize control of a giant monster with a infinite capacity for reproduction. Then the little Thresher Maws that have been mentioned up until now likely already had already been put under its control. This could be bad, the only thing that was keeping the Thresher Maw's away from the settlements had been near mindless hunting instincts leading them back towards the Maw hammers, if those instincts get overridden... Liara looked back at the mural's, proof of surprisingly artistic Krogan. Assuming the worst of people isn't going to get her anywhere, but letting the Thorian proceed with a mental wrestling match with Kalros benefited no one. Crossing her legs Liara entered a state of meditation. Mind Palace, you see on the table a phone, this phone has no numbers but rather connects you to your neighbours.
After you pick up the phone you have to work to connect to which of the neighbours that you need to. Locking onto another Psionic? Unless they're actively hiding their thoughts? Easy. When that Psionic was basically living rent free inside of your head? Super easy.
"I hope you have a good explanation for this, you trouble maker." Liara growled while closing her eyes in the lotus position. She didn't realise it but one of the Krogan had wandered in on the conversation she had started with the Thorian.
"This creature was causing trouble for the locals, hence how my glorious spores end up in side the canals of these... dull creatures. I am domesticating it." The tunnel shook again, ancient dust falling on Liara's head in the process.
"Right now the only one causing trouble here is you." Liara snapped, in time for more Krogan to come in and see that she was apparently talking to someone. "Make the Bloody Thresher Maw's leave so that I can conduct my dig in peace!"
"I have been trying to do that for days!"
"You ever get the feeling that's the universe's way of telling you it's not working?" Liara asked bluntly holding her chin on her fist. "Stop torturing them, let them leave on their own, and then maybe we can finish what can here for while you work on another approach." After a few moments, the distinctive rumbling of a group of Thresher Maw's scattering in all directions echoed throughout the ruins and Liara let out a sigh now that she could work in peace. When she opened her eyes she was greeted by a group of Krogan on their literal hands and knees worshipping her. "Aaah..." And that was how Liara accidentally started a Thresher Maw cult.
The Normandy arrived back at Tuchanka on a pit stop, mostly to pick up more Krogan mercenaries. Liara arrived just in time to escape the people giving her uncomfortable looks of admiration, jumping aboard the Normandy with the use of her biotics to speed herself along a little bit.
"Don't ask." Liara stated as she let out a sigh. "I've had my fill of the Krogan. So how'd it go with the shrieking space monsters?"
"They ate a planet full of Eezo and have jumped the border into Council and Terminus space." Shepard explained bluntly.
"Ah more giant psionic monsters. Lovely. The Thorian is trying to domesticate Thresher Maw's by the way." Liara stated as she went to Shepard's cabin to have an actual shower instead of vibrating the dust off of her body. Shepard however...
"The Mot's a Thresher Maw?" With that eloquent and highly relevant question Shepard moved on with what she was doing.
The Prethoryn continued to make a giant pest of themselves as they grew entire ships lined with potent Eezo, Hive Fleet Hydra continued to find new and exciting ways to spread themselves out over the few sectors they had claimed, worming their way into Terminus and council space despite the attempts being made to blow them up, shoot them, drop artificial meteor showers on top of their heads, the list went on and on and on. Then, a month into the Prethoryn's invasion the Turian's of all people manage to discover not only their weakness, but also a effective means of delivering upon it and repelling the invaders. And all that could be said was...
"Well shit."
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: True. True. I like Garrus's snark.
Guest: Cool
Gianfranco Cembran: Both of these things are true.
Clown2107: 1. Precedence: Protheans, Lichs and Thuban all have a history of setting themselves up as god like figures to primitive cultures, and in the case of the latter two then growing out of of that behaviour, thus rehabilitation is preferable to extermination. 2. Future: The Thorian copies things from others, be it physical through the use of clones or mental in the case of the megalomania inherited from the Protheans, how then do you think the future Thorian will turn out if they teach it that it's acceptable to delete people's personalities and replace them with more suitable ones? Especially considering the Thorian is theoretically capable of doing that on a galactic scale? 3. Control: The Union is already primed to erase every Thorian cluster in the galaxy if the Thorian itself makes it necessary, the Stick to the carrot of letting it spread far and wide.
